301 redirect

I have a domain which I would need to redirect to a new domain name with 301 redirect. There are few things I am not sure about. First of all pages will change path locations and names on the new domain. Meaning that

page:

www.olddomain.com/page1.htm

will change name and location to

www.newdomain.com/folder/1page.htm

My question is as follows:

Is it better to redirect it page by page to new location (100 pages) meaning that .htaccess will be bit long.... or simply redirect the whole site to the new domain leaving the pages at current positions for now until search engines get all the parameters (rankings, positions etc...) and then after a while change pages' locations and names while on the new domain.

Thanks

 

why dont you just move your entire site over to the new domain?

and actually if you use a 301 it will redirect the from olddomain to newdomain everytime i am pretty sure

 

Since with 301 you move your site permamently to the new positions and with it you get all the rights you have gained with the search engines over the time, like rankings, positions etc.... If I simply move to the new domain I have to do it from scratch.

 

I would recommend redirect whole website using 301 redirect. Search engines will recognize you are "switching domains" and your ratings (including Google PageRank, if it's important for you) will be transferred to new domain.

 

Thanks, but what about my other issue about either transfering every page individually or the whole site since pages will change names and path locations.

 

If your structure is changed, you should do individual redirects (because visitors will see 404 errors on new site)

 

my question was following:

Is it better to redirect it page by page to new location (100 pages) meaning that .htaccess will be bit long.... or simply redirect the whole site to the new domain leaving the pages at current positions for now until search engines get all the parameters (rankings, positions etc...) and then after a while change pages' locations and names while on the new domain.

 

It's better to redirect page by page if you want each page to retain the PR & backlinks. Here's a 301 redirect guide that explains most of this stuff. If you do redirect the entire site, make sure you have a REALLY good 401 page that helps people find what they were originally looking for within a click or two at most...

 

I think you'd better change it page by page.This is more friendly for search engine to accept.What's more,it's also
more confortable for your vistors to accept although changing the whole website is more convenient.

 

Can you also throw a short example how it can be done the best way meaning, not to complicate it too much in order not to make mistakes in the process, thanks

 

Here you go (put this code into .htaccess file):

redirect 301 /old_file.html http://www.newdomain.com/new_file.html

Hope that make sense. You can try playing a little and you see it's really easy.

 

What about the RewriteEngine ON

 

Do you know that you will lose a lot of SE traffic if you use 301 redirection?

 

It will go down for few weeks but it will gain back ranking and trafic once search engines perceive this as a permanent move. At least I think it is best way to do it.

 

You will NOT. 301 redirect was made for search engines so they can "understand" that content has moved. Did you use it moving old sites to new domains? I did (for multiple times), and I know traffic and rankings will NEVER be lost.

 

That is exactly what it is used for, is there a chance to get a code for moving but not only site to site by page to page since I will be moving pages to new locations (changing folders) and under the new names. Do you think this willl have any impact on the end result.